Yeah, When you start playing with these things One starts dreaming about them.
In an ideal world the manufactures would supply materials to the distributors so that small independents can do the work. Problem was that such was abused with some building whole watches out of spare parts. In theory the better service providers would would benefit from performing the better job. In practice the cheap cut rate providers tended to undercut or even cheat on the work.
If it takes two years to train a competent service worker, That worker is only going to work on the high end stuff. Probably be really persnickety about what they touch.
There needs to be some sort of middle ground. There are plenty of YT entertainers out there. Like most things the interest is a passing fancy. No one wants to commit to something and miss out on the next big thing. Which is just around the corner. Watchwork takes a certain amount of attention span. Those of us who are empassioned tend to do what it takes to find the needed parts. Or projects.
The sheer numbers of variations are overwhelming. I got caught up with Landeron and A Schild. Mostly because these are cheap and available. Massive amounts of parts were made. If I had my druthers I would rather work on Omega and Lemania. (With a partiality to Valjoux.
There is a bit of irony that most watches are assembled by women. Yet the archetypal watchmaker is usually male. One seems to want one who is older nearing retirement age, with a slight foreign accent. Most of the ones I have met do seem to be immigrants, which seems to get them treated as cheap labor.
What seems to be forgotten, is a good one has to run a business. I collected a lot of trade magazines from the 1950s/1960 through the 1980s. The early ones are full of great technical articles. (well the practices are not up to modern snuff, but they are entertaining.) The later ones have columns like "The jeweler and the law." This makes it almost imperative that in order to run a buisness one has to pretty much have a law degree. Not to mention have deep pockets in which to deal with things like insurance and other such things.
A lot of the old articles in the trades, did address the subjects of comebacks where the repair was not what was expected. On the other hand they did want the customer to visit when the time was right. A delicate balance.
I suspect there are a half dozen or so watch repair places within 10 or 15 miles of here. Most are in hardware stores, the mall or consignment shops. Expand that to 40 miles and one covers the big city as well. Could be 50 to 100 for all I know. I personally have visited 3 of them in the recent years. Usually there is a line. Often there is a person waiting to drop off or pick up a Rolex. Does make one wonder about the reliability of such, If they need constant servicing and repair.
